Complicated, Confusing EHRs Pose Serious Patient Safety Threats

Confusing displays, improperly configured software, upgrade glitches and systems failing to speak to one another—those are just a few electronic health record-related events that put patients in danger, according to a new study. The more complex an EHR system, the more difficult it may be to trace problems, patient safety experts warn. Hospitals planning to add new software or make updates should be strategic about changes and proactively include ways to monitor events.

“Because EHR-related safety concerns have complex socio-technical origins, institutions with longstanding, as well as recent EHR implementations, should build a robust infrastructure to monitor and learn from them,” concluded the report published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association...

Other patient safety experts also have noted the complexities of introducing new healthcare IT systems into already complicated healthcare environments. At a session during the Modern Healthcare Patient Safety & Quality virtual conference June 18, Debora Simmons, senior vice president and chief quality officer of St. Luke's Episcopal Health System in Houston, noted counterproductive features such as drop-down menus that are too narrow to allow users to see all of the information they need, or a medication list so lengthy, a clinician cannot find a drug he is seeking. Such negative features may seem trivial, but “it's a huge deal,” Simmons said...